A UCLA library user who allegedly took home rare Chinese manuscripts and returned fake ones in their place has been charged with stealing items worth $216,000, the Justice Department said Thursday.

Jeffery Ying used a number of aliases to get access to the classics works, some of them over 600 years old, the DOJ said.

Ying, 38, would check the works out and return days later with dummy manuscripts, and would frequently travel to China shortly thereafter, charging documents say.

"The library noticed that several rare Chinese manuscripts were missing, and an initial investigation revealed the books were last viewed by a visitor who identified himself as 'Alan Fujimori,'" the DOJ said.

The main UCLA campus library, the Powell Library, is seen from Royce Hall in April, 2025. at UCLA in We

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